Sometimes it's hard to tell which side is up when when it comes to charging cables or other plugs that can only plug in one way. Try a single drop of glue and you'll always know which end is up.

Reader Jon wrote in with this clever solution to a common problem:

I have several Zune media players (though this works for pretty much anything with a cable requiring a particular orientation) and there's a right way and wrong way to plug it in the charging cable. As Murphy's Law would have it, I always ended up trying to insert it 180 degrees out of whack the first time I tried. So I'd groan, turn it around, and then plug it in the right way. This happened almost every day. You'd think I'd get it right 50% of the time, but it was more like 10%.

So I added a single little drop of super glue to the to "top" of the plug's connector casing. It's unobtrusive, clean in appearance, and allows me to orient the plug the correct way every time, even in low light conditions because my makeshift indicator is a smooth little tactile bump rather than a silk-screened logo as appears on some cables.

This tip is particularly great for those of us who are prone to attempting to charge phones in the middle of the night without reaching for the light switch. Do you happen to have a different way of dealing with ambiguous cable orientations? Tell us in the comments. Thanks, Jon!